In a clash of teenage prodigies past and present it was 19-year-old Mirra Andreeva who took a step further to fulfilling her long-evident potential, as she booked a place in her first grand slam final at the expense of the in-form Marta Kostyuk, winning 6-1 6-3.
23-year-old Kostyuk had been the most dangerous player left in the draw after an unbeaten run on the red dirt this season and titles in Rouen and Madrid. But the Ukrainian wilted under bright sunshine in Paris, leaking 34 unforced errors to her opponent’s 22 and largely failing to trouble Andreeva’s composed, clinical ballstriking.
Andreeva’s increasing maturity was evident as she kept cool despite her opponent imploding and the crowd’s desperate attempts to encourage Kostyuk back into the match, a far cry from her meltdown against home favourite and underdog Lois Boisson in last year’s quarter-final.
The teenager, as the eighth seed the highest-ranked player left standing, was rewarded with a final against qualifier Maja Chwalinska, who defeated Diana Shnaider to become the first qualifier to reach a slam final since Emma Raducanu at the US Open 2021. There she will have to reckon with the pressure of being the out-and-out favourite despite being the youngest of the final four.
Andreeva told press later that “I was so focused that I could see those hairs on the ball.” “I’m getting closer, I’m getting older, a little bit more mature every match I play, a little bit more experience. So I think that now I’m able to approach every match differently and try to really focus on the opponent that I’m gonna play against and the game plan that I’m going to have to use on the court.”
On court, she said: “The conditions were really tough today, I couldn’t understand which direction the wind was going. I’m happy I was able to stay focused, today was one of those days where I felt everything could happen and it was a little unpredictable. I just told myself if she ends up winning she’s going to really have to work for it, and with this mindset I ended up winning the match.”
This match, played out mostly under bright sunshine and an open roof following days of dark clouds and showers in Paris, was held under a very different shadow – that of the Russian war in Ukraine.
Kostyuk has dedicated several of her wins in Paris to the people of Ukraine, and was overcome with emotion after revealing a missile strike had narrowly missed her parents’ home before her first-round match. She has been sharply critical of Russian players, including Andreeva, for failing to speak out against the devastation. As expected the players took it in turns to take the customary photo with the young mascots, and there was no acknowledgement between them before they began the warm-up.
Kostyuk’s dazzling clay season thus far – having won 16 matches in a row – was set in motion by the 23-year-old finally shrugging off the pressure that has weighed her down since her emergence as a teenage prodigy.
Rather than becoming over-emotional and collapsing under her own expectations, as had happened earlier in her career, she let herself swing freely, and her natural athleticism, speed across the clay, and the variety of her shotmaking brought the run of results she had long been tipped to achieve.
But it all unravelled in the early stages of her first major semi-final. The wind that had so hampered Aryna Sabalenka on Wednesday had calmed slightly but the conditions remained lively. And while both players made a nervy start, Kostyuk was immediately punished for hers, double faulting twice in her opening service game and shanking the ball tamely into the net to concede an early break.
19-year-old Andreeva responded with a double fault of her own as the pressure of the occasion was apparent on both players, but Kostyuk squandered a break point and a big first serve by the teenager backed up the break.
From then Andreeva settled, punishing Kostyuk with her clean, brutal groundstrokes and drawing the 15th seed forward with a soft touch at the net. The Russian’s first serve dug her out of trouble at deuce when 3-0 up, but after racing to a 4-0 lead she fired just long at the end of a lengthy Kostyuk service game, with the Ukrainian roaring with relief as she finally got on the board.
There was to be no look-in on Andreeva’s serve, though, as the teenager sealed a quickfire hold with an ace down the T, and Kostyuk continued to spray errors into the net. It was a far cry from the fluid, attacking tennis she had produced against Elina Svitolina in the quarter-final. A thumped backhand into the net handed over a shocker of a set in 33 minutes, with a composed Andreeva barely reacting as she walked back to her chair.
Kostyuk reset at the start of the second, forcing Andreeva to deuce on the teenager’s serve with a stunning backhand down the line, and as Andreeva hit long the Ukrainian cut a more positive, aggressive figure, celebrating each point. But she hit an easy forehand into the net and her tenseness was evident as she turned to remonstrate with her box, with Andreeva thundering a serve out wide and the reply perfectly onto the opposite tramline in response.
Andreeva broke again at the first time of asking, with her destructive backhand down the line sealing the game, and her pure groundstrokes kept her a step ahead of the 15th seed. She was helped by an increasingly frustrated Kostyuk continuing to crumble, with three successive errors helping Andreeva to an easy hold for a 3-0 lead.
With Andreeva leading at 4-1 thunder rumbled in the distance and the decision was made, prematurely, to close the roof. Andreeva later said wryly: “I felt like it was not the best moment for me. But I just told myself, ‘Okay, they know better. That’s fine.’ Obviously I lost those two games after, but I just tried to stay focused and not think about what happened.”
Kostyuk saved another break point chance after some clever point construction by Andreeva, and looked to capitalise on the cleaner conditions under the roof, having been troubled more by the wind.
The crowd’s raucous applause was amplified under the roof and after a 28-shot rally went Kostyuk’s way, Andreeva was faced with her first real test: coping with the environment suddenly firmly against her. A double fault brought up three break points for Kostyuk, with chants of “Marta” leading to a further reprieve by the umpire, and as she fired long for 4-3, the match looked entirely different.
Andreeva later said she had changed her perspective over the course of this season. “Before I was thinking that, Oh, my God, if I lost my serve, it’s like the end of the world. But now I feel like, if she broke me, well, so what? I will try to break her back. So far it’s been working pretty well, because if I get nervous when I serve, I think she also can get nervous when she serves.”
So it proved: Kostyuk’s errors did not stop under the lights as she opened with a double fault, and Andreeva restored her advantage with a vicious overhead smash for 5-3. She let out a huge roar as Kostyuk thumped a cross-court volley into the net at the end of a 21-shot rally, with the tension evident, and a fine forehand which just kissed the line brought up match point.
And it was a Kostyuk error that handed over the win, the 23-year-old lobbing a forehand long as a stunning French Open campaign came to a juddering halt. Instead it will be Andreeva, the youngster who refused to crack, who is now one win away from a maiden major, and the final step in her coming of age.
